Malpighia glabraL.

wild crapemyrtle

WFO wfo-0000449751 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Malpighia glabra, photographed by Center for Urban Ecology
fig. a Center for Urban Ecology, CC0 1.0 / 2022-05-11 / obs. 197058273
Malpighia glabra, photographed by Center for Urban Ecology
fig. b Center for Urban Ecology, CC0 1.0 / obs. 195399618
Malpighia glabra, photographed by Center for Urban Ecology
fig. c Center for Urban Ecology, CC0 1.0 / obs. 194419143
Malpighia glabra, photographed by Center for Urban Ecology
fig. d Center for Urban Ecology, CC0 1.0 / obs. 189478642
Malpighia glabra, photographed by Alexis López Hernández
fig. e Alexis López Hernández, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 201434363
Malpighia glabra, photographed by Center for Urban Ecology
fig. f Center for Urban Ecology, CC0 1.0 / obs. 186730441
Malpighia glabra, photographed by Center for Urban Ecology
fig. g Center for Urban Ecology, CC0 1.0 / obs. 185367685
Malpighia glabra, photographed by Center for Urban Ecology
fig. h Center for Urban Ecology, CC0 1.0 / obs. 183426501

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 28 botanical countries

Regions where Malpighia glabra is native: Vietnam, Mexico Central, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southeast, Mexico Southwest, Texas, Aruba, Belize, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Leeward Is., Netherlands Antilles, Nicaragua, Panamá, Puerto Rico, Trinidad-Tobago, Venezuela, Venezuelan Antilles VietnamMexico CentralMexico GulfMexico NortheastMexico NorthwestMexico SoutheastMexico SouthwestTexasBelizeColombiaCosta RicaCubaDominican RepublicEcuadorEl SalvadorGuatemalaHaitiHondurasJamaicaNicaraguaPanamáPuerto RicoTrinidad-TobagoVenezuela ArubaLeeward Is.Netherlands AntillesVenezuelan Antilles
Native distribution of Malpighia glabra, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Aruba ARU SOUTHERN AMERICA
Belize BLZ
Colombia CLM
Costa Rica COS
Cuba CUB
Dominican Republic DOM
Ecuador ECU
El Salvador ELS
Guatemala GUA
Haiti HAI
Honduras HON
Jamaica JAM
Leeward Is. LEE
Netherlands Antilles NLA
Nicaragua NIC
Panamá PAN
Puerto Rico PUE
Trinidad-Tobago TRT
Venezuela VEN
Venezuelan Antilles VNA
Mexico Central MXC NORTHERN AMERICA
Mexico Gulf MXG
Mexico Northeast MXE
Mexico Northwest MXN
Mexico Southeast MXT
Mexico Southwest MXS
Texas TEX
Vietnam VIE ASIA-TROPICAL

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Flowering 232 in flower of 325 examined

Peak flowering in Aug. Each bar is the share of Malpighia glabra observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 232 of 325 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Where it actually grows measured, from 900 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 6.4 °C 12.6 °C 20.5 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 27.2 °C 34.4 °C 36.4 °C
Annual rainfall 543 mm 713 mm 2,229 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 40 mm 98 mm 247 mm

It is barely found anywhere that freezes. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 900 research-grade observations of Malpighia glabra that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one. Climate from CHELSA V2.1 (Karger et al. 2017); occurrences from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 16 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Malpighia biflora Poir.
  • Malpighia fallax Salisb.
  • Malpighia glabra subsp. undulata (A.Juss.) F.K.Mey.
  • Malpighia glabra var. acuminata A.Juss.
  • Malpighia glabra var. antillana Urb. & Nied.
  • Malpighia glabra var. guatemalensis Nied.
  • Malpighia glabra var. lancifolia Nied.
  • Malpighia glabra var. undulata Nied.
  • Malpighia myrtifolia Desf.
  • Malpighia neumanniana A.Juss.
  • Malpighia oxycocca var. biflora (Poir.) Nied.
  • Malpighia peruviana Moric.
  • Malpighia punicifolia L.
  • Malpighia semeruco A.Juss.
  • Malpighia undulata A.Juss.
  • Malpighia uniflora Tussac

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.